This invention relates to pick up tools, dropped object retrieving devices, reach extenders or like holding and pick up tools which an operator may use from a standing position or a seated position.
The invention has for its primary object the goal of providing a light weight pick up tool or dropped object retrieving device which is particularly useful and helpful to disabled persons, persons confined to wheel chairs, back pain victims, neck pain victims, post surgical patients who cannot bend or stoop over during their recovery from surgery, pregnant women, arthritis victims, persons involved in picking up pieces of litter and garbage, and healthy people who would rather not stoop over.
This invention is particularly useful to persons who have difficulty in stooping, bending, reaching, twisting, or stretching to retrieve objects and articles that are on the floor or ground. This invention is also useful to help retrieve objects that are beyond the reach of a person's hands and arm span. Bed ridden persons, persons confined to wheel chairs, as well as persons involved in some form of medical treatment therapy such as kidney dialysis or spine traction would also find this invention useful.
Persons recovering from back surgery, neck surgery, eye surgery, plastic surgery, heart surgery, scoliosis correction surgery, abdominal surgery, hip surgery, knee surgery, brain surgery, as well as persons with muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, and other neuro-muscular diseases would find this invention useful and helpful.
A secondary object of this invention is to provide healthy persons with an easy to use pick up aid that will help them minimize the number of times they have to stoop over and bend each day when picking up around and in their homes.
This invention may also be used by persons whose occupations involve picking up and retrieving a lot of small to medium sized articles, such as highway and street clean up crews, gardeners, hotel maids, factory maintenance persons, automobile mechanics, and various other occupations. Fruit pickers could use this invention for picking fruit off hard to reach branches as well as for shaking fruit off branches. Skin divers and scuba divers could use this invention for catching crabs as well as obtaining and handling possibly poisonous and dangerous undersea plants or animals. Persons involved in arranging store front window displays would find this invention useful and helpful in positioning and adjusting items in their displays.
It will be appreciated that the invention has a broad range of uses for both disabled and healthy persons alike.
A number of reach-extending devices have been suggested in the prior art. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,694,525, 1,910,725, 2,061,130, 2,807,495, 2,819,110, 3,265,429, 3,276,805, 3,591,226 and 4,037,868, and British Pat. No. 849,366. U.S. Pat. No. 3,265,429 discloses a combination cane and pick-up tool having a hand actuating function somewhat similar to that of the present invention. Also, this and several others of the above patents show tension type connecting rods with spring biasing mechanisms generally similar to that of the present invention. However, all of the above patents fail to contemplate many of the important features of this invention. The patents cited above in particular all show jaw mechanisms wherein only one jaw member moves to effect the grasping action.